Earthcore

A great read. Spoiler alert.This one starts in 1941. Three young men, Will, Sam and Doug, from Brigham Young University are exploring a cave in the Wah Wah Mountains of Utah.The young men explored caves like it the year before and found a strange knife which they donated to the Archeological Department. The young men won't be seen again and that knife will sit in a box and not bee see for seventy years.Sonny McGuiness, a hard scabble and very lucky and good prospector, is in a seedy bar having a drink with a Hopi Indian.They are talking about a place called Silver Springs. Its kind of a mythical place. A place the Indian Dennis Diving Bird has been to. Sonny gets all the info he can from Dennis and decides he will indeed look for Silver Springs even though Dennis tells him no one from the tribe will go near that mountain. Dennis also told him when he was there he wanted nothing more than to leave as quickly as he could.Sonny, an old black men, does indeed find Silver Springs. A very small spring that has what looks like silver all through the small pool. Sonny takes a sample and takes it to the only man he takes any of his samples to. Sonny also notes that he gets very bad vibes from the place. There are no birds, squirrels or rabbits anywhere. In fact the place seems to be dead. Sonny can't wait to get out of that area.Sonny takes his sample to Herbert Darker. Herbert runs the test and tells Sonny he doesn't have silver. He has high grade platinum. Sonny is more than flabbergasted. Platinum is a metal that is hard to find and none has ever been found in the mountains of Utah. Sonny now will have to see who wants to buy what he knows.Darker, a businessman, called Connell Kirkland who works for Earthcore a mining outfit. He tells him what Sonny brought in and Connell is more than interested. The purity of the platinum is second to none.Of course Kirkland will have to get Sonny to sell to him and after he talks to his boss he knows they won't be able to offer more than a million. A million will be chicken feed for the platinum if they can find it.Kirkland does indeed get Sonny to sell for a million and two percent of the proceeds as long as the mine hold out. It was a chancy deal and one Sonny was madder than hell about but he knew Kirkland could tie him up in court with bogus charges for years. Sonny figured two percent of that platinum mine would set him up for life. The only provisio is that Sonny has to be at the mine site for a year.Earthcores lab is run by Angus Cool. A man no one who works for him has much use for. He's demanding and a genius. A man who invents things to help Earthcore. He's a spelunker and he and his friend Randy Wright, another of the men who work for Earthcore are always in caves all over the world when they are on vacation.It doesn't take long to set up base camp. A camp with armed guards to include Cho Takachi who escorted Sonny to the museum. A Sonny who was a genius at looking up facts. Facts dealing with the disappearance of three men back in 1941 and a crazy man who butchered his entire crew in the same area back in 1885. Sonny is already beginning to see going to what he calls Funeral Mountain is a bad idea. If not for that two percent he'd never set foot near that mountain again.So begins one damned fine read.This one has Sonny, Collen, Cho, Kayla Meyers who's called Farm Girl, a woman Kirkland employs to get nifo, a Kayla who will do anything to get back in the NSA, an outfit she was kicked out of, Angus, Randy, Nate Hendricks the man who Kirkland learned away from another dig to handle the dig for Earthcore, Patrick O'Doyle the head of security for the site, a man who has been all over the world fighting for Uncle Sam, Bertha Lyebrand one of the security guards, Veronica Reeves a famous archeologist who almost puts the kibosh to the Earthcore dig, he father Gangi, death, destruction and everyone doing their best to get out of the mine, survive and stay alive.Five Stars

Sonny McGuiness, an old prospector for years, converses with a Hopi Indian named Dennis about the "silver springs", a legendary location for untold riches. Dennis give Sonny directions but warns him that the Wah Wah Mountains in Utah are cursed. When Sonny finds the claim, he feels something strange around him and wonders how much of Dennis's tale was true. But creepy feelings aren't enough to stop Sonny, especially when he discovers that the "silver" is really an unusually pure mass of platinum.The claim is purchased by Earthcore, a company led by a cutthroat named Connell Kirkland. Connell has lost all emotion after the death of his wife, making him an icy, deadly adversary in the corporate world of mining. He'll let nothing and no one stand in his way, even going so far as to hire ex-NSA "interrogator" Kayla Meyers to seek out the truth of the Wah Wah claim. Kayla is beautiful and deadly, and has a true passion for her work.Connell assembles a team of the best-of-the-best in their fields for the initial exploration of Earthcore's new find, using utmost secrecy to avoid the competition getting wind of the vast platinum mine. He hires Dr. Angus Kool, a genius with three PhD's, a scientist who's sociopathic behavior goes far beyond his arrogance. Joining Angus is his assistant, Dr. Randy White, also rated in the genius range. Mack Hendricks, an Australian Engineer, is pulled off a current dig to join Connell's crew. Running security for Earthcore is Patrick O'Doyle, an ex-assassin from the military, a hard, scarred man who takes his job more seriously than his own life. Assisting O'Doyle is Bertha Lybrand, a heavily muscled warrior and exceptional soldier. Crashing the party, to protect un-explored cave systems, are archeologist Dr. Veronica Reeves and her mentor/father figure Sanji Haak, who've been written up in Nation Geographic for their similar dig in the mountains of Argentina. Last is Cho Takachi, the security guard assigned to watch and monitor Sonny's movements.With a surprisingly sophisticated base camp established outside the vast cave and tunnel systems that lead toward the dense mass of platinum, the exploration begins. Sonny, on-site as part of his monetary agreement with Connell, suddenly wishes he'd stayed away. The longer he stays near the Wah Wah's (which he'd christened Funeral Mountain) the more uneasy and fearful he's become. Sonny and Cho have dug up the past of Funeral Mountain, and found nothing but failure and death. Nevertheless, he's unable to stop Connell and his Earthcore party from entering the mountain. All are in danger, and not all will make it out alive. There's something alive down there, and it doesn't like visitors.Sigler has written a fantastic sci-fi thriller. Starting as a podcast, Earthcore was later published as a book. Contrary to what other reviewers have said, the characters are not weak but fully fleshed individuals, each with their own virtues and flaws. The environment is painted so real that I could feel the heat, feel the claustrophobia of the tunnels. The book is very fast-paced, the ending so exciting you won't be able to put it down once you've reached the last 100 pages. I was deeply fascinated by the race discovered below, and mesmerized by their evolution. The intense race to return to the surface left me breathless, biting my nails as I read on. Sigler is a remarkable new author, definitely one to watch out for. Pick up a copy of Earthcore for the ride of your life. I highly recommend this book. Enjoy!

I'll start this off by saying that it was kind of a struggle getting through the first 1/5 or 1/4 of the book; I wanted to leave it several times. Like any novel, this portion introduces you to the characters and man...none of them were good. Several I actively disliked, and the rest I felt nothing about. I guess part of my problem is that I always search for one or a few characters that I relate to or want to root for; I won't spoil anything, but I will say that I could not feel that way about any of the introduced characters.Additionally, there were a lot of of campy moments - basically, kind of cliche and made me roll my eyes. Like when (multiple) characters would blatantly boast about their abilities/influence. Also, sometimes two characters would be talking, and suddenly, one of them enters flashback mode to give us background. Obviously, life history is sometimes important but it can be done way smoother IMO.All of that said - the sci-fi part, when the book finally got to it, was great!! Again, I don't want to spoil anything so I won't write much about it. But dang, the sci-fi was enjoyable and intriguing enough that I (mostly) forgot about all the problems I detailed above. The exception, I guess, is that I didn't really care about the fates of any of the characters. A couple of them grew on me over time, but certainly not enough.All in all, was a good (albeit flawed) story with some interesting science fiction ideas. Worth a read.

I love this book and it's the one that started my love with the Author Scott Sigler.The sequel (Mount Fitz Roy) took over 10 years but was so worth the wait.

Was first introduced to earthcore as an audio book about 10 years ago and it was a great listen with plenty of thrills and chills - I have always wanted to read the novel and it is just as good an epic page turner that I could not put down - nice cliffhanger - hoping he will eventually do a sequel but nevertheless I whole heartedly recommended this book if you want to get lost in a awesome thrill ride

In this book, a man who is looking to make his mark on the world through a company which digs for valuable materials and minerals seemingly finds everything he's been looking for. Through sheer fluke, an ageing Prospector uncovers evidence of extremely valuable metals just waiting to be dug up. Word gets to the man, who "persuades" the Prospector to show them what he's found.But there are...complications. Two previous digs took place at the site, in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. There were no survivors of the 20th century dig, the earlier dig saw the man who led the dig appear wounded and half-mad seemingly speaking nonsense months later. People who have lived near the mountain for centuries believe evil lives there...But none of that stops the man. His inventor, a brilliant but incredibly egotistical man, is able to create technology that can get them safely further into the ground than anyone has been before-all the way down to the metals source. He has teams working to get them down there safely. He knows what he's looking for and where to find it. What could go wrong?Everything.Scott Sigler builds up an increasing sense of tension and dread as it becomes increasingly obvious that something is waiting for the team underground. Something terrible. The arrival of a scientist and archaeologist who has spotted similarities with her own work, which suggests an unknown underground civilisation, incredibly ancient and advanced, only makes it worse. She wants to go down with them, to see what she's never been able to reach before.But none of them, almost, will accept that sometimes a place is avoided by those who know for very good reason. Sometimes, as Sigler makes clear, the monsters are real. Especially when very human one's seem to await you if you fail.A former NSA Agent, a young woman, provides the human horror in many ways. Forced out of her old job when it came out just what she was capable of to get the job done, as she saw it, there's nothing she won't do to get back in. She can see there are secrets here-but what does she care? They are how she gets home.The story will make your skin crawl with "What Ifs?" If you want well-written horror and a very clever, well-written story? Enjoy.

A fairly steady build up as the scene is set and characters are introduced, with plenty of hidden agendas revealed. When the action starts, it's fast and furious and non-stop excitement. From the very beginning of the story, when the platinum was first discovered, it was obvious something was wrong, and I loved what that something turned out to be. Scott Sigler knows how to write Sci/Fi/Horror/Thriller novels and Earthcore is another fine example of his talent and imagination.

Took a while to get round to this book, but once started couldn't put it down, great the way it ties into the Siglerverse and the GFL, Scott is one of my 3 favourite authors (Larry Correia and Jim Butcher are the other two) although the style of this particular book also reminds me of Matthew Reily's non stop edge of the seat action. Will have a look at Mount Fitzroy next.